


Loss and Tater Tots

by AlyssiaInWonderland



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Hungry Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Loss, Other, Protective Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Sad Eddie Brock, Self-Sacrifice, idk how to tag this help me, tater tots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 12:37:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16429550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyssiaInWonderland/pseuds/AlyssiaInWonderland
Summary: After Venom sacrifices itself to save Eddie, he feels adrift. He's exhausted, alone and possibly seeing things (again).But it turns out, Venom isn't really gone.Eddie's happy about that.(aka my take on what happened when Eddie found out Venom survived the explosion)





	Loss and Tater Tots

He’s falling. 

The entirety of his vision is wreathed in flame, and all he can feel is the sharp cold of the air below him, and the roiling heat above.

He isn’t falling away quickly enough, the fierce orange-red licking closer. It’s scorching the fine hairs on his exposed skin. He isn’t going to survive this.

 He feels something in him rebel at the thought.

 Venom.

 Venom is moving, shifting through him, eclipsing the fire with its own body. He can taste the pain of it, because sound and flame can kill them, and they both know it.

“Venom, no!” Eddie shouts as loud as his exhausted vocal chords will let him. He already knows Venom won’t listen – the choice has already been made. Was made by the time Venom decided to give up its species for him.

Eddie clings to Venom, wants desperately to be able to latch to his simbiote the way it’s tendrils dig into the fibres of his being. He feels them being ripped apart, cell by cell, stripped by heat and burning agony. He clutches as best as he knows how, until he hits the icy water, and he’s searching inside himself for any speck of Venom and all he finds is an empty chest, numb with cold and loss.

He watches the fragments of rocket scatter like ashes. He wonders if any of the crushed embers are made of what used to be them.

Anne finds him, of course. She’s far too good for him, drags his half-drowned form out of the water and into the car.

“I’m – I’m soaked. Could I – could I wear this?” It’s an echo from earlier, and he feels a spike of absence when he can’t hear Venom’s voice guiding him; his id and conscience in one.

“Of course – I said you can wear what you want, Eddie.” Her voice is gentle, and he loves her for it. The pang strikes him again, because Venom would have loved her for it too.

He peels off the wet tops, huddles into her fleece. He’s probably stretching it, but she said he could wear it, and he’s freezing, inside and out.

Dan’s there when she pulls up at the hospital – he didn’t think to ask where they were going, but he should have seen their destination coming.

Dan brought him blankets and some fresh, soft clothes that are so kind to his skin they feel wrong. Everything in him is too ragged for such comfort outside him. He lets himself be scanned, and there is no pain.

Dan and Anne are both watching him like he’s going to snap, or scream. He doesn’t blame them. It would be so much easier if they were less kind, less worthy of respect and gratitude. But they are kind, and he doesn’t know how to tell them no, so he lets them help him and he’s ravaged by his thankfulness. It doesn’t seem right that they are bothering with him. He’s a mess, and they’re both too good for him, not just Anne. They look out for him anyway.

He can’t go back to his apartment, but Dan is staying with Anne, so he’s got Dan’s apartment to himself. It should be strange, but somehow it’s okay. They’re good people. He can’t turn away their help, because that would hurt them; it’s a backwards way of accepting assistance, but it’s how he’s coping, so he embraces it 

He’s hungry, but he doesn’t want to eat. Any time he thinks of it he can feel neck-bones snapping in jaws he can’t have ever again, tastes iced tater tots scraping his throat, and it’s too much.

He undresses, mechanically brushes his teeth as he waits for the shower to fill the room with steam.

It curls around him, snaking around his body and wreathing his profile in the mirror in white. It’s the wrong colour, because what he wants is to be subsumed by the black that is – that was – Venom.

He bends low over the sink, spits out the mint and reaches out to put the toothbrush back in its holder – Dan actually has a toothbrush holder, which Eddie always thought was something people pretended to have rather than genuinely owned and used.

He glances up at the mirror, and sees a flash of Venom’s clouded, slanted eyes. He starts back, the toothbrush flying from his hand and clattering into the sink, spraying small dots of water over the mirror. Heart hammering in his chest, he steps forward, uses his palm to try and wipe away the beginnings of condensation, and peers closely at himself.

He’s just him. Exhausted, bags under his eyes and stubble that borders on the infancy of a full beard at this stage of abandon. It must have been the steam, he decides. The steam, and wishful thinking, and perhaps even sleep deprivation hallucinations, because those are in fact a thing, and even a thing he’s experienced before.

He drags his hand over his face, and decides he’ll shave after the hot water has softened the hairs.

He gets in the shower, ignoring how his limbs want to shake. The borrowed shampoo smells like tea tree, the intensely herbal scent viscerally comforting. Its astringency takes his mind off his hunger, and by extension off his loss. He doesn’t know quite when they bonded so strongly. Physically, they were intimate, in the deepest sense of the word – mentally, too. Venom’s thoughts were his, and his were Venom’s.

Somewhere along the line, between the car chases and the being torn apart and reaching out to come back together, the lines between them had blurred. Eddie barely feels like himself without also being a them, anymore. He’d got used to being them so quickly. Getting used to being alone again is going to take far more time – far more strength – than he thinks he has.

Regardless of his ability to exist, he at least owes it to Anne and Dan to not give up while they’re trying to help him. So he hides in the soapy lather, and the smell of green.

It seems to be working – he can feel something warm starting to grow in his chest, the hot water finally having an effect. He doesn’t want to step out into the cold again, so he keeps the shower on. Just a little longer, he tells himself.

_Hungry!_

Eddie jumps, tangles his startled, flailing limbs in the shower curtain, and crashes to the slippery floor.

He sees, distantly, something dark flowing out from under him. He hopes he isn’t going to bleed out in Dan’s shower, and then he’s gone, drowning like he hadn’t before. He sinks into blackness.

* * *

 

He manages to have the energy to be surprised that he’s woken up, but only just.

He’s sitting on the sofa, wearing a borrowed robe, and he can smell tater tots from the kitchen. There’s an empty chocolate bar wrapper on the coffee table in front of him, and he can’t hear the shower running.

Cautiously, he tries to take stock for injuries. He seems okay, which is reassuring, but he also isn’t wearing underwear, so whoever came to find him deserves either a medal or a pummelling – possibly both.

He stands up, looks around, and tries not to think that his hallucinations from earlier might have meant Venom is still with him. He doesn’t think he could take the feeling of losing Venom yet again.

He turns back and he’s face to face with Venom.

Instead of hitting the hard floor, he’s spun back to his position on the sofa. He blinks slowly at the sharp teeth, the milky eyes, and lets himself reach out.

 Venom coils around his outstretched hand. Eddie revels in the feeling, sensation returning with a vengeance now he’s them again.

_We are hungry, Eddie._

“Yeah. Did you – did we eat Dan’s chocolate?”

_Yes. We have also started cooking his tater tots._

“We can’t just take his food!” Eddie’s conscience protests, but his stomach is protesting more strongly, so he can’t be too annoyed.

_We just have._

“Yeah, well, great!”

_We are weak, so we are hungry. We need food to replenish ourselves._

Eddie sees Venom fragmenting above him as he falls, and together they remember the moment.

This time, Eddie sees it from their view, not just his own. He feels Venom being stretched and feels himself straining to cling on the way Venom is clutching to him; feels how his refusal to let go meant Venom left it’s claws firmly embedded in his psyche. Claws that could, with a little time and food, regrow because even so tiny a shred could hold Venom when Eddie was cradling them together so desperately.

“Yeah, okay.” Eddie’s not just talking about the tater tots. It’s about him accepting Venom’s sacrifice, and being glad it wasn’t one after all. It’s about them still being together, even now the intense, adrenaline-fuelled and necessity-based partnership is over.

It’s about how they don’t even have to talk to know they’re both finally home, Dan’s apartment immaterial.

Eddie’s body protects Venom, and Venom’s protects Eddie. Together, they are safe. 

The oven timer beeps.

They eat the tater tots.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I hope this is enjoyable! I wanted to do my take on what happened when Venom revealed it survived! <3 As ever, comments and kudos feed my dark soul!!!


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